I once read that the world is made up of two kinds of people; those who have read The Lord of the Rings and those who are going to read it. I don’t know if that’s true or not and if it is, I’m somewhere on the journey between those two states because I’ve read two volumes of the trilogy but haven’t yet got around to reading the third volume. But whether you have read or are going to read The Lord of the Rings, you must know something about it. And even if you haven’t read the books, there can’t be many of you who haven’t seen at least some of the film adaptations of them that were released between 2001 and 2003. 

Despite many things in The Lord of the Rings being drawn from pagan mythology, it’s a work full of Christian themes; good versus evil, humility versus pride, mission, redemptive suffering, death and immortality, grace and providence. These things are all there in the work and that’s not surprising because the author, JRR Tolkien, was a devout Roman Catholic. He’s credited with being a significant influence on the great Christian author CS Lewis’ conversion to Christianity and Tolkien himself said that  The Lord of the Rings is “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work”.  But amongst the Christian themes and imagery in The Lord of the Rings, there’s one scene that I think is perhaps particularly suitable for today, All Saints Sunday, because it can teach us great deal about what it means to be a saint. To be the saints that we’re all called to be as disciples of Christ.

The Scene is The Council of Elrond where representatives of the various peoples of Middle Earth gather to decide what’s to be done with the One Ring. They know they have to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord, Sauron, because if they don’t, evil will rule over the whole earth. They’re told that the ring has to be taken into Mordor and be destroyed, but some don’t want that, they want to use the ring for themselves and when they’re told that’s not possible, they belittle those who say it and refuse to acknowledge their allegiance to them. Others are willing to destroy the ring and think they know the best and easiest way to do it. Some think they’re the best ones to carry out the task and don’t want certain others to play any part at all In the mission. In the end the Council dissolves into a heated argument between those concerned, with people on their feet, shouting and pointing their fingers at one another. And while all this is going on the wizard, Gandalf, who in Christian terminology is essentially an angel, looks on and shakes his head in despair.

And isn’t that just like the Church? The Church which has its divinely ordained mission to fight against sin the world and the devil, as our baptismal liturgy puts it. And yet spends so much of its time arguing about how to carry out its mission rather than getting on with it. Which engages in so many mutually destructive internecine arguments about who knows best and who, in their opinion, is and isn’t part of the fellowship that this mission has been given to. About who’s in charge of the fellowship. Even whether they’re willing to be part of a fellowship that includes those with whom they disagree. And can we doubt that while all this goes on and evil goes unchallenged because of it, the heavenly host looks on in despair and shake their heads?

And then, into this tumult, comes a small voice, from a very small person, a Hobbit, Frodo Baggins, who says “I will take it. I will take the ring to Mordor. Though I do not know the way.” Now,  Frodo Baggins isn’t perfect. By his own admission he doesn’t know how to get to the place he needs to get to. His journey there is long and hard. He often gets discouraged and thinks he can’t do this thing he knows he must. He sometimes gets lost on the journey, sometimes he’s led astray by others who lead him away from where he needs to go. Sometimes those who’ve pledged to help him try to divert him from the road he knows he has to follow. Sometimes those who’ve offered their help try to stop him from carrying out his mission. But he carries on regardless because he knows that what he’s doing is the right thing to do. And this is the way of the saints.

Saints are holy people, but they’re not perfect people. They’re people who’ve dedicated themselves to God and to carrying out God’s purpose in their lives but that doesn’t mean that they never get things wrong. It doesn’t mean they never have doubts. It doesn’t mean they’re never led astray. All these things happen to the saints but what makes them saints is that, whatever happens, they always return to their mission and carry on with it, no matter how hard it is, no matter what anyone else says or does to put them off or to try and stop them. And that’s something that we should always try to do too because we are all called to be that kind of person; we’re all called to be saints.

Just recently, I’ve been talking to a few people about vocations, and one of the questions that’s cropped up is how do we deal with being part of the Church when we disagree with what the Church is doing? What do we do when we think the Church has lost its way? Perhaps even that the Church seems to have lost sight of what its mission actually is. I’ve been asked these questions in the context of ordained ministry; what does a priest do in those circumstances? But the answer applies to both priest and people alike, and that is, we carry on following our vocation whether that be as a priest or a lay person because we’re disciples of Christ. And it’s him we follow and no other. I’m not saying that’s easy because I know that sometimes it’s not. We can be disillusioned both with what other people are doing and saying and with our own inability to follow Christ properly. We can be put off by what others do and say. We can find ourselves not knowing which way to go. But it’s in those times that we have to remember who we’re called to follow.

I’m sure that, like me, when you were young you did something you shouldn’t have done and, when you were asked why, you said it was because someone else had done it first. And no doubt the response you got from your parents or teachers was something along the lines of, “And if they’d stuck their head in the fire would you have done that too?” And that reasoning applies to us when we become disillusioned with things in the Church or find being a disciple difficult. Just because someone else in the Church is a hypocrite, does that mean we have to be one too? Just because someone else has given up because the Way of the Cross is too hard, does that mean we should give up too? Just because someone has been talked out of being a disciple of Christ, does that mean we should allow ourselves to be talked out of it as well? Just because someone else has lost their way and strayed from the Way the Cross, does that mean we have to follow them along the wrong path? The answer to all those questions is ‘No, we don’t’. Just as we wouldn’t stick our head in a fire just because someone else has done it, so we don’t have to do what other people have done when they’ve lost sight of the path they should be following as disciples of Christ. Whatever happens and whatever anyone says or does, we should always be faithful to Christ and his way. And even if we do stray at times, we should always come back to Christ’s way.

I know that, sometimes, it’s not easy to know what the right way to go is. We know we should follow Christ’s path, and we want to follow his path, but we can be confused about which path that is, especially when we have people giving us conflicting directions. That happens quite often these days as we try to deal with issues that we don’t read about in scripture.

It’s difficult to know at times which is the right way to go when one group in the Church is saying “This is Christ’s way” whilst at the same time another group is saying “No it isn’t.” And we always have to be wary of people claiming a certain way is Christ’s way when, in fact, that way is the way of the world and of those who are claiming that it’s Christ’s way. So we need a trustworthy guide, and that guide is Christ himself.

In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo is given The Light of Earendil to “…be a light … in dark paces when all other lights go out.” And when we’re in dark places and can’t see our way clearly, we have to walk by the light of Christ. We don’t carry it around in a flask, as Frodo does in The Lord of the Rings, but we do find it in scripture. And we should always carry it with us in our minds and in our hearts so that, when we’re in dark places and we’re not sure which way to turn or who to listen to, we can turn to Christ and listen to him so that he can show us the right way to go and put us back on that road again.

No matter what people say or do, no matter how confusing what they say and do is, we’re called to carry on regardless along the Way of the Cross. No matter how many times we take a wrong turning and get lost along the way, we’re called to keep going and find our way back to the right road again. This is the way of the saints and if we want to be the saints we’re called to be, this should be our way too. To travel the road of good over evil, of humility over pride, of following the Church’s mission to proclaim the gospel and teach people his commandments, the road of sacrificial love, a road we walk by faith in grace and providence, a road that we have to travel along until we come to the end of our lives but a road that, if we can travel it, will ultimately lead to eternal life. 

Amen.   

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Propers for All Saints Sunday, 3rd November 2024

Entrance Antiphon
Let us all rejoice in the Lord and keep a festival in honour of all the saints.
Let us join with the angels in joyful praise to the Son of God.

The Collect
Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living,
that we may come to those inexpressible joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)     
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14
Psalm 24:1-6
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

RCL (St Gabriel’s)          
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24:1-6
Revelation 21:1-6
John 11:32-44

One of the things we soon realise when we start to study the Gospels rather than simply read them, is that the Gospel stories usually work on multiple levels. There’s the plain meaning of the story we read but hidden within the story there’s usually a spiritual meaning. Sometimes Jesus himself tells us what that is, usually through explaining a parable to his disciples. Sometimes though, we have to think about a story in context, why does it come where it does in the Gospel, what’s happened before this that this particular story might shed some light on. And then there’s the lesson Jesus is trying to teach us through the story, and to understand that we have to think about how the story applies to us in our own lives. And we can see all these things at work in this morning’s Gospel story, the healing of blind Bartimaeus.  

On the surface, this is a simple miracle story, an account of Jesus healing a blind man who comes to him in faith. But if we think about the story a little more deeply, it’s actually a lot more than that because underlying the story of Jesus giving physical sight to Bartimaeus, is a story about spiritual blindness and, if we can see it, a lesson for us and for anyone who has ears to hear and eyes to see. In fact, we can see the story of blind Bartimaeus as one bookend of a section of St Mark’s Gospel about spiritual deafness and blindness.  

One bookend of this section comes at the end of chapter 7 in the Gospel. By this time Jesus has performed many miracles and done a great deal of teaching, and he’s amazed at people’s lack of faith and lack of understanding. Then at the end of chapter 7 Jesus heals a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. Again, on one level, this is a story about a healing miracle, but in the context of what’s gone before this is also about opening people’s ears to hear and understand what Jesus is saying. It’s no coincidence that the word Jesus uses when he restores this man’s hearing and speech is “Ephphatha”, “Be opened”, because people must hear and understand if they’re going to go out and spread the Gospel.  

Then, at the start of chapter 8, we have the story of Jesus feeding the 4,000, immediately followed by a dispute with the Pharisees about their demand for ‘a sign from heaven to test’ Jesus. But it’s not only the Pharisees who still don’t understand, it’s Jesus’ disciples too.  

They start  ‘discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread.’ And Jesus has to ask them, “ Do you still not perceive or understand?” 

Then comes another healing miracle, this time the healing of a blind man. But this seems a strange one because Jesus has to have two attempts to get it right. After the first attempt to give the man his sight back, he can see, but not clearly. The man says, “I see men, but they look like trees walking.” So Jesus has another go, and this time the man ‘saw everything clearly’. That seems a strange story until we read on and then we can see that hidden within this healing miracle, is a story about people who do see, but not clearly, about people who only understand in part what Jesus is saying and doing.  

And that’s exactly what we see as we read on. We hear Peter’s great confession of faith that Jesus is “…the Christ”. But in spite of that confession of faith, as soon as Jesus speaks about his death and Resurrection, Peter rebukes Jesus, clearly thinking that he, Peter, knows better than Jesus! We read about the Transfiguration when Jesus appears in glory with Moses and Elijah, but again, when Jesus speaks about rising from the dead, Peter, James and John don’t understand what he means. And so it goes on. Jesus heals a boy with an unclean spirit that the disciples had tried and failed to drive out, and we find out that’s because  the disciple’s prayer is at fault. Then Jesus again foretells his death and resurrection, and again the disciples don’t understand. Then, the disciples start arguing about greatness. They know they shouldn’t be doing it because when Jesus asks them what they were discussing, they won’t tell him. But they argued about it, nonetheless. Then they admit they’ve tried to stop someone from acting in Jesus’ name because he wasn’t one of them. And Jesus has to put them right again. He teaches about temptation and divorce , where again there’s misunderstanding. The disciples try to stop children from coming to Jesus, which makes Jesus angry. He teaches about the danger of attachment to riches, which causes at least one young man to walk away, in spite of his faith. Then we read about Jesus, yet again. foretelling his death and Resurrection. This time we’re not told that the disciples don’t understand but, just as we think that perhaps the light has started to dawn on them, James and John ask Jesus for positions of power in his kingdom, in spite of what Jesus had already told them about greatness and the need to serve and be as little children. And then we come to the story of blind Bartimaeus. But what do we read there?  

That Bartimaeus cries out to Jesus, but people have a go at him and tell him to shut up. And we can probably understand why. Bartimaeus was a beggar, who was he to shout out for Jesus’ attention? Why should someone as important as Jesus be bothered about someone so unimportant as Bartimaeus? Surely there were many far more deserving people for Jesus to see than this blind beggar.  

But to Jesus, Bartimaeus is important, and most importantly of all, he cries out to Jesus in faith and it’s his faith that heals him and restores his sight. We know that because Jesus says it. And so we know that this is a story about spiritual healing too, not just about physical healing. Bartimaeus can see with his eyes now, but he also understands who Jesus is and what Jesus is saying because we’re told not simply that he followed Jesus, but that he ‘followed him on the way’ and we know from what we’ve read earlier that, in answer to Peter’s rebuke, Jesus said,  

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”  

So Bartimaeus had clearly seen, in a spiritual sense, and understood something about Jesus that others were struggling to see and understand. 

Once we set the story of blind Bartimaeus in the context of what’s gone before, we can see the spiritual meaning hidden within the story. And once we can see that, we can start to look at how this story applies to us and how we can apply its lessons to ourselves and our own lives.  

We here today call ourselves Christians. We proclaim our faith in Jesus, in that sense, we’re just like Peter. But how often do we say that we hear and think that we see when, in fact, at best we’re like that man who was only partially healed by Jesus? We see something of what Jesus said and did, but we don’t see clearly. And because we don’t see or hear clearly, we don’t proclaim the Gospel as we should.  

How often do we read the Gospel, understand the words we’re reading, but put our own spin on them to make them easier to follow, or perhaps even to make excuses for our failure to follow what we know their real meaning is? In that, again, aren’t we just like Peter, thinking that we know better than Jesus, trying to find an alternative way to follow Jesus, one that doesn’t involve the way of the cross? How often do we think that our prayers go unanswered? But when we pray, how many of us truly believe that what we’re asking has already been granted, as Jesus said we should? We know that to be great in God’s kingdom means being a servant, just as Jesus himself “came not to be served, but to serve”. And yet how many people in the Church are concerned with greatness in an earthly sense. How many are like James and John, wanting power and authority? And how many, having achieved some kind of authority in the Church use it to ‘Lord it’ over others in the Church? How often do we criticise those of other denominations of the Church, or of other traditions within our own Church, or even within our own congregations simply because they’re different, because they’re not ‘one of us’, just as the disciples tried to stop one who wasn’t one of their gang? How often do we see children treated badly in churches, being told to ‘Shut up!’, ‘Don’t do this’, ‘You can’t do that’? Or do we hear parents of children being told to keep their kids quiet and even to ‘clear off’ if they can’t? And how many of the people who say things like this then complain about the lack of children and young people coming to Church these days? But didn’t Jesus become angry and rebuke the disciples for that very attitude towards children? And how many in the Church think that worldly status somehow makes them more important in the Church (and by implication more important to Jesus) than those of lower worldly status? Isn’t that exactly the attitude people had to blind Bartimaeus? And yet the only status Jesus cared about was the status of Bartimaeus’ faith.  

When we read the Gospels, if we only read the story on the page in front of us we miss out on so much that we could learn from the stories. So much that we could use in our own lives to deepen our faith and to be better Christians. If we can pray that our ears might be opened to really hear what Jesus is saying to us through the Gospel stories, our eyes will be opened to how we might follow the way of the cross more closely in our lives. And if we can do these things, our tongues will be released to proclaim the Gospel in a better way. So, when we read the Gospels, let’s not simply leave it at that but study what we’re reading, think about it, pray for understanding of what we’re reading and for the grace to live out what we’ve learned in our daily lives. 

Amen.  

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Propers or the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Last after Trinity) 27th October 2024

Entrance Antiphon 
Let hearts rejoice who search for the Lord.
Seek the Lord and his strength, seek always the face of the Lord. 

The Collect 
Blessed Lord, 
who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: 
help us so to hear them, 
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them 
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word, 
we may embrace and for ever hold fast the hope of everlasting life, 
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, 
who is alive and reigns with you, 
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 
one God, now and for ever. 
Amen. 

The Readings 
Missal (St Mark’s)
Jeremiah 31:7-9 
Psalm 126 
Hebrews 5:1-6 
Mark 10:46-52 

RCL (St Gabriel’s)
Jeremiah 31:7-9 
Psalm 126 
Hebrews 7:23-28 
Mark 10:46-52